A Shadow Through Time
by the13thdragon
Summary: Harry grows up and slowly begins to develop into the wizard a wizard that will change the world. Will eventually be a powerful Harry fic and will contain time travel to the ancient world. No slash
1. Chapter 1

**A Shadow Through Time**

Harry glanced down at the book he held and cursed in frustration, this was going to take ages. Ever since he had received a notice from the ministry saying that due to the return of Voldemort the under age restrictions on magic were lifted for those over the age of fourteen Harry had been studying.

As soon as he got the message he had sent Hedwig to Flourish and Blots asking for books on duelling and combat magics as well as wards, a general spell book, a few on advanced charms and transfiguration and a one on occlumency and legillimency. His current irritation however stemmed from the fact that he couldn't get a single advanced spell to work. He had dived right into advanced combat magic like a true Griffindor only to find that his theoretical knowledge was not good enough to perform such magic. If he was going to learn such spell he would first have to study lots and lot of magical theory Arithmancy and perhaps Ancient Runes. In hindsight he thought it had been rather foolish of him to assume that he could become powerful by just reading a few books and practicing a bit. This was looking like it would take years to get good enough at magic to protect himself and others so that a repeat of the department of mysteries would never happen. Harry had been concentrating very hard on not thinking about this subject he didn't really know how he felt about Sirius's death, after all he had not really spent that much time with him but he was still the closest thing to a family he had ever had, so he avoided thinking about it by studying and doing exercise until he was to tired to think.

Thinking about his current problem Harry decided he had two possible solutions; one was to go to diagon alley and find the books and anything else he might need, or he could just order stuff again. Going to Diagon Alley would be better he thought but it was risky and as he had yet to learn any disguise or stealth magic everyone would know that he had been there which as he thought about it would not be good, thinking about it Harry was amazed that he wasn't caught sneaking around Hogwarts more, he hadn't even used a silencing charm!

In the end he decided to just order books and maybe a few memory potions and some other potions ingredients and visit diagon alley later on when he was more confident in his abilities after all it would not do to go rushing off to somewhere potentially dangerous unprepared again he had already made that mistake more than once and was determined not to make it again. So he sent Hedwig out again this time with a list of theory books that covered material from first year to well beyond Hogwarts curriculum.

When the new books came Harry delved into magical theory, Arithmancy and Ancient Runes with abandon. The memory potions helped immensely with learning everything although he still had to work to understand the material he no longer had problems remembering anything.

Arithmacy Harry found was a sort of magical equivalent of physics, it dealt with the laws for magic, what worked, why and how. It was through Arithmacy that complex spells and rituals could be worked out and the structure for wards designed or analysed for weaknesses so they could be brought down.

Ancient runes was a subject taught at Hogwarts, Harry however found it more accurate to just call it runes as they were not all old and there age had nothing o do with there function, it was not a history subject. It was by combining various runes with spells that wards and enchantments could be made permanent and there power could be increased dramatically. First by creating the effect then power could be added in again and again until the material the runes were engraved in could no longer withstand the energy flowing through it and would ether melt or shatter. This was incidentally why runes were usually carved in stone, metal or crystal as they could take the strain and heat much better than wood or other soft materials such as cloth that tended to catch fire if they became too hot.

Harry discovered that with the a better understanding of magical in general and how each specific spell worked allowed spells to be cast more efficiently. That is not to say that you became stronger but the effects of spells would be more powerful as less energy was wasted when forcing it into a spell incorrectly.

Harry studied magical theory and Runes for around a month before he was satisfied that he knew enough to be able to properly perform the moderately advanced magics without wasting energy. This was vital as for an average wizard they used a lot of power even when cast perfectly and though Harry was no average wizard he was still young, and therefore comparatively weak at least compared to how he would eventually be. In terms of magical theory Harry had surpassed any Hogwarts 7th year and most adults in fact but there was sill much that he could learn and at some point he determined to come back to study the theoretical subjects after he had got a long way with his other studies.

During his study Harry had discovered a few things, on of the more important was that wandless magic was not as hard as people believed. It was however quite different from what people believed. Spells were created with Arithmacy to work with wands, hence they required wands to work, but magic didn't. There were no spells with wandless magic only general techniques. To use wandless magic you had to will something to happen and then force magic from your core to make your will reality. Obviously this was very difficult as you had to know exactly how to do something in order to do it and it required immense force of will and concentration to create any complex effects and this was why wands were invented and wizards being the lazy sods they are forgot about wandless magic. Harry had been practicing and could make things move short distances if they weren't too heavy and his control was rather shaky.

It was now the middle of august and Harry had improved dramatically in magic. He had first gone back over all his school books and those that he would study in 6th and seventh year and learnt all the spells that he hadn't before because he hadn't really tried. His better understanding of magic had helped immensely where before he had to struggle to learn spells most came easily to him know taking four or five attempts to get right and maybe fifteen to twenty to perfect. He had realised why the hat had said he could go to Ravenclaw there was a great sense of satisfaction to mastering new spells and learning new things.

His study of occlumancy had gone reasonably well he had found that it was better to learn occlumancy at the same time as legilimancy as both required mental strength and it was much easier to build such strength by attacking others minds than having your own attacked especially if there are no other legilimancers around to attack your mind. Occlumancy consisted of organising you thought, memories and emotions and then building mental shields to separate these groups and then building more shields around the whole lot. This separating of thoughts from emotions was what allowed users of occlumancy to hide emotions so well, as they could shut them behind shields to stop themselves thinking about them, although this was not a good idea to do for extended periods of time. The next part was the difficult one and was where Harry currently was. When first created the shields were hopelessly weak, too weak to stop any form of legilimancy at all. The however the shields automatically strengthened as the mind that created them grew stronger and more skilled. To increase mental strength though was difficult as it required that strength to be used and this meant ether having somebody attack your mind repeatedly like Snape had done to Harry or you had to repeatedly attack others minds which was preferable as it was not painful. When Harry discovered this he realised that this was exactly what Snape had been doing, he must of assumed that Harry had already constructed shields for some reason and that puzzled Harry as he could not work out why unless Dumbledore had told him and that was a troubling thought.

In this building of strength Harry had two advantages though one was Voldemort, with his emotions constantly flowing down the link to Harry they were now constantly battering against his shields and so keeping them out was rapidly strengthening his mind. The second advantage was his practice of wandless magic, he had already determined that it depended on mental strength to focus the magic, so the more he practiced wandless magic the stronger his mind got and hence his ability at occlumancy and legilimancy and the same was true for the reverse. His current strength in occlumancy allowed his to completely block off Voldemort's emotions but Harry was sure that he couldn't stop an actual attack. Due to his budding skill he performed all legilimancy wandlessly which was a feat that normally only masters could perform.

On that topic his wandless magic had improved substantially, he could now move around big heavy things reliably, open locks create a weak shield that was about the equivalent of a protego shield spell, set things on fire and violently shove around things like a banishing charm.

In advanced magic Harry had made some progress. He had found that even with his greater understanding of magic the spells were still very difficult to learn and so he had decided to learn a small number of the most useful spells and perfect them before trying to learn more. So far he had learnt a shield spell which had the incantation "Aegis" it was a corporal blue sphere that completely enclosed the caster and allowed the casters spells to pass out through it so it could be held constantly, if you had the power. Procella was a spell which conjured a storm of bolts a lightening that with skill could be directed to strike multiple targets or to deliver a huge bolt to a single enemy, obviously it did a lot of damage. Argentum Telum was a silver bolt that was designed to destroy shields though it put a fist sized whole in anything else it hit like walls, doors… people. He also learnt Explodra a much more powerful version of Reducto, a spell that crated a bar of awesomely hot flame called the dragon fire charm, a spell that created a globe of pure force that could be thrown at opponents and was powerful enough to crush cars called the thundering hammer due to the thrumming noise it made as it passes through the air and finally an advanced stunner that enervate didn't work on a and a spell that chained up people with steel manacles to stop them escaping.

Harry had also learnt a few healing potions some advanced disguise and stealth spells, a few tracking spell and how to apparate. He had found a charm that when put on a room automatically fixed anybody who had been splinched, as long as all of them was in the room. So Harry had learnt by apparating from one side of his expanded room to the other until he felt confident to try further, after a bit of practice apparating around the country he had worked on become silent and while he had not achieved it completely he was much quieter than the twins.

Harry now faced a bit of a dilemma. He had got to the point that learning new spells wouldn't help really he needed to practice fighting again other wizards and magical creatures such as trolls and vampires if he was to improve, he was also concidering learning how to use a sword and maybe martial arts encase he was disarmed. And secondly he was supposed to be going to Hogwarts in about two weeks and he wasn't sure he wanted to. Something was bound to go wrong again and he had learnt so much on his own that he felt he could teach himself better. In the end Harry decided to make his visit to diagon alley first and look for alternatives hopefully before everyone went for Hogwarts stuff as a street full of school children was a perfect target for a death eater attack.

AN: Do I need a Beta?


	2. Chapter 2

Harry glanced around diagon alley in surprise it was busier than he expected, although when he considered it he realised that people generally believed what the ministry told them, so if the ministry had said diagon alley was safe then that would explain the number of people willing to risk it. Actually from the number of aurors in the alley that Harry could see and the wards he could feel surrounding the alley it might actually be safe, from small attacks anyway, it seemed that Fudge was doing something useful for once. With one last glance around Harry set off into the alley.

After a brief stop in gringots to get some money Harry headed into Flourish and Blots to look around, he found a few books on advanced wards, one with more advanced combat spells, a book on how to construct portkeys and a set of books on enchanting objects, this Harry thought would be a very useful skill.

Next he went to get some combat robes but he found that all the ones in Madam Malkin's were just enchanted cloth and he knew you could get dragon hide ones so he decided to wait and see if they had any in Knocturn, while he was there he did buy a few new plain robes in black and gray and a new black cloak and he also bought a formal robe and cloak and numerous pants and shirts to wear underneath them.

'Now this was a surprise' Harry thought, Knocturn alley was nothing like he had been told, after the first 30 yards or so that could be seen from diagon alley the street widened slightly and became a well lit, if a bit cramped alley that twisted and turned around the various shops and buildings, looking at the dates on the shops Harry decided that the shops must have been built like this before there was an alley and the "alley" was just the space in-between them, as all the shops (well the buildings they were in) were over 1000 years old. Looking around the stretch he was in Harry found a book shop and entered.

"Hello there" said a voice from Harry's left as he entered turning to look he was an old man standing behind a counter sorting a pile of books.

"Hello"

"I don't remember seeing you before, I take it this is your first time in the alley?"

"Yes" Harry replied deciding to discount the time he followed Malfoy "It's not what I expected"

The old man grinned "are well yes parents tend to tell their children that it is a bad place as it is easy to become lost here for young children and there nothing for them here really anyway as the stores are all ones that supply rarer items and services or that are very specific. That is not to say there is nothing "Dark" about the alley, there are several pubs that are favourite meeting places for thieves, hit wizards and dark wizards in the side streets and some shops sell what the ministry deems dark materials and artefacts"

'Hit wizards? What the ministry deems?' Harry thought and decided to ask.

"Well hit wizards are like mercenaries, in times of war they are all hired by the ministry, at other times they hire out there services to anybody that will pay, say to kill of a rampaging group of giants, to guard somebody during a dangerous meeting, some of them will kill wizards for money but this is obviously illegal. Now what the ministry deems dark is an interesting point you see the ministry bans or regulates a lot of spells potions and materials and all rituals saying that they are dark and evil and should only be used in special circumstance it at all. However the a lot of these spells and potions are not really dark the ministry just doesn't want them used so they declare them dark, for instance the spell to remove the tracking charms from wands would be considered dark but really there is nothing dark about it. That is not to say however that there is no such thing as dark magic, there is but it is not good or evil just like "light" magic it is merely different. In "light" magic to casting a spell costs you a certain amount for magical power that you will recover over time, dark magic cost this power and something else. It can be anything else at all in theory for example the killing curse needs a lot of hatred to cast correctly, you don't need to hate what you are casting it on but you need feelings of hatred for something, the patronus charm is actually dark magic as it requires positive emotions to cast"

Harry thought about this for a minute and decided it defiantly sounded like something the ministry would do and decided that he should at least learn about dark magic even if he never used it.

"Do you have any books about dark magic?"

"Why yes I do, over there on the shelves to your left"

After looking around he found three books on dark magical theory, two spell books, a book on dark wards and one on the unforgivables, browsing the shop Harry also found a book on how to bring down or get around wards both the approved ways and the underhand and sneaky ones and a set off books he was very surprised to find on parsel magic. While he was doing this Harry was thinking about what the man had said about hit wizards, it would be perfect he would get experience of a variety of situations and enemies, it was just what he needed he wondered if hit wizards took apprentices?

Walking out into the street after paying and thanking the old man he looked around for another shop to go in. He spotted one that sold various enchanted items and though he might find something interesting.

Inside there were tables covered in all sorts of objects sitting on a small slip of parchment that listed the objects properties, there was a sign on the wall saying that each table was warded so that you could pick items up but you couldn't take them more than four feet from the table. Moving around Harry found an enchanted watch that worked like a portkey, a single location could be programmed into it and when a button was pressed it would take you there, it could also be set to activate if you we stunned or otherwise unconscious, it could only be removed by its owner and could be hidden with a powerful built in notice-me-not charm. Harry also found an amulet that hid the users magical signature so they couldn't be tracked and hid the wearer from detection wards like the ones in the ministry or things like the marauders' map, the final thing he found as a silver ring that contained a powerful shield charm, it could shield the wearer from three for four combat type spells before being exhausted and it then could be recharged by the owner by poring their magic into it, Harry though it would be very handy if he was ever surprised as it would give him time to raise a shield of his own or if he ever missed a spell when deflecting them basically it would cover him if he made a mistake. These purchases were expensive but Harry thought they would be worthwhile.

The next shop Harry found that looked interesting was a magical weapons shop it was set out like the shop before with some weapons enchanted some mealy charmed (much cheaper) and some non-magical. Harry liked the look of the swords but decided to wait until he knew more about them before buying one. In the end he bought an enchanted mithril dagger that was enchanted to return to his hand when summoned to act like silver to werewolves and to be impossibly sharp. Harry also bought two dragon hide holsters one that that strapped onto his ankle for the knife and one that strapped to his right wrist for his wand. They had notice-me-not charms and a charm that hid the magical signature of both the holster an the knife so that is he was scanned for weapons they would not show up, this last charm was a bit illegal but Harry decided that it would be worth the risk.

Harry continued walking down the alley untill he saw a shop that surprised him it, the sign said it was a "wand crafter"? Harry wondered what the difference was so went to look.

The inside of the shop was very different from Ollivander's shop instead of piles of wands there were three long tables in the middle and work benches around the outside.

Harry felt a presence come up behind him and spun around and was surprised to come face to face with an old man that looked suspiciously like Ollivander.

"Hmm you felt my approach impressive, now what can I help you with"

Harry to a moment cot gather is thoughts then replied

"I saw your sign and wondered what the difference was between a wand maker and a wand crafter"

"I take it you have one of my brothers wands then?" He asked and then chuckled as understanding dawned on Harry's who nodded face "Yes he is my brother, well then you see a wand maker makes lots of wands cheaply and when somebody comes to buy one he then finds the best match between wand and wizard the match is never perfect though so some of a wizards power is wasted when it is channelled through a wand, a wand crafter though makes wands for each wizard individually so that the wand is perfectly matched to the wizard, the crafting process is complex and very expensive as lots of different cores are used and than fused together to make your perfect wand core.

Harry thought about it, it sounded that it was much like that advantages of understanding magical theory and that had helped him immensely and decided it would be a good idea to get one it would also solve the problem of priory encantatum with Voldemort's wand, Harry wondered why Voldemort had never gotten a crafted wand it was odd.

"Can I buy a crafted wand then?" Harry asked

"Of course, now you see these tables, the first one has different woods, pick each sample up and send a small pulse of magic into it and see how it feels some of them will feel right pick out those and bring them to me."

Has Harry went through the woods he picked out what he recognised as holly which was no surprise, yew, some very dark wood that he didn't recognise and a black wood and felt cool to touch. Finding no more he want back to Ollivander.

"Right lets see holly, yew from the Fortingall tree in Scotland it's the oldest tree in Europe you know it might be as much as 5000 years old, hmm ebony, oh and a piece of Árbol de la Noche Triste or the Sad Night Tree its where Cortes mourned his defeat and the slaughter of his armies when he fought to conquer Tenochtitlan its said that the tree socked up the blood from all those that died in that war. Right well onto the cores, that's the next table, same process"

Harry went down this table testing out the various items; it looked like there were enough things here to open a potions shop. Eventually he found what looked like a black phoenix feather although he never knew they existed, what looked suspiciously like unicorns blood, a bottle of clear liquid, some blood, a white powder, a strip of flesh that he guessed was a hart string of some sort and a vial of green liquid.

"Hmm black phoenix feather, unicorns blood willingly given, phoenix tears, powdered vampire fangs from an elder vampire, the heart string of an emperor horntail dragon and basilisk venom how interesting. The last table has focus stones off you go"

This table was magnificent it was covered with heaps of gems and crystals of all different shapes and colours he picked up a blood red stone, a blue one with a white star in the middle a black stone that seemed to suck in the light and a dark blue gem.

"Ooh interesting blood emerald, star sapphire, a crystallized dementor soul and a blue diamond. Right now we have to combine the woods, cores and stones so we only have one of each. For this I will need 4 small vials of your blood" he said handing Harry the vials, using his new knife to cut himself Harry filled the vials then handed them back and watched as Ollivander poured 1 vile into each of three cauldrons and then put all the cores in one, the woods in another and the stones in the last and put the last vial aside. The golden potion in the cauldrons boiled and writhed before stilling and Ollivander fished around inside them and pulled out a length of black wood a straight stick that was silver and gold and a blue gem that shone with an inner light. Ollivander then assembled the wand muttering spells under his breath Harry watched as the parts merged together to form a single complete wand and then as Ollivander very carefully carved runes into the wand before pouring the last vile of his blood over it which was absorbed by the wand.

"Right now the last step, when you pick it up the wand will draw on you magic to charge the runes so don't be alarmed, the runes make sure nobody else can use it allow it to be summoned to you no matter where you are and make it unbreakable"

Harry reached out and picked up his new wand immediately he felt the pull on his magic as the runes glowed blue briefly before they stopped and a shower of black, blue and gold sparks poured out of the end in a thick stream and shot around the room. Harry felt the connection between him and his wand form and marveled at its strength it made his older wand feel like somebody else's.

After thanking Mr. Ollivander profusely and paying for his wand along with two wand holsters he left the shop.

Next Harry found a shop that sold allsorts of magically expanded spaces, be bought a truck that had four levels the first two were storage like an ordinary trunk, the third was a set of rooms, a bedroom and small bathroom, a kitchen/dining room, a library and another room that could be used for anything, it was currently empty. The last level was a set of four cells apparently the truck had been a custom order from an aura but he had never come to collect it, it required the correct password and magical signature to open so it was very secure especially as Harry set his password in parseltounge. He also bought a small bag that was expanded to contain five times what it should be able to and a book on how to expand pockets you're self.

The last thing Harry found was a shop called Druids Nightmare that sold Battle robes, after talking the man in the shop he bought a set that were made of basilisk skin layered between to sets of dragon skin, they were the best robes available and with all the protective enchantments they greatly reduced the effects off spells on the wearer, they were also enchanted to be more flexible, lighter and cooler and Harry had asked to have two extra enchantments added one to dampen sound around them so not only did the robes make no noise but they made everything else quieter and a glamour spell that made then look like ordinary robes . They were jet black and completely covered his body the hood had spells on it that could hide his face if he wished that even moody's eye could not penetrate. Needless to say such protection came at a huge price but Harry deemed it worth it and it was not as if he lacked money. The protection they offered was such that a stunner cast by most Hogwarts students would have no effect whatsoever. Harry also bought a pair of dragon-hide boots that didn't leave footprints, and a set of black leather gloves that were charmed to shrink after they were put on so they fitted like a second skin.

After buying everything he wanted Harry decided to go back to the leaky cauldron and ask Tom about people who taught swordsmanship and marshal arts and about dueling.


	3. Chapter 3

Tom had been very helpful. He had told Harry about a squib that taught martial arts, knife fighting and swordsmanship to people who paid him. Apparently some of the better Aurors went to him because they weren't taught such things by the ministry who deemed them unimportant. He had told Harry that he would owl the squib whose name was Marcus Diggory and ask him to meet Harry in the Leaky Cauldron as soon as possible.

While he was waiting for Marcus Harry had asked Tom about dueling in the wizarding world. Tom had been quite surprised Harry hadn't known, and explained that there were duelling competitions run in various places through the year, such as the Hogsmead one in October or the Diagon Alley one at Christmas, these were all fairly small competitions where anybody could enter and the winner got a small prize based on the entry fee. There were also bigger competitions though. There were various cups that had been sponsored by famous or rich people, the national tournaments and the European and World championships. These competitions attracted large crowds to watch in special arenas and duellers came from all over the world to compete in them (they were all open to anybody from any nation as there went that many wizards). The prizes for these competitions were also much greater and it was by winning one of the national tournaments or better that people earned the rank of duelling champion.

Deciding to that this would be a great way to gain some experience Harry asked how he would enter them.

"Right well you sent an owl with you name and age to the duelling committee; it's a party of the magical games and sports division in the ministry you see, and then they send you an owl a week before each competition asking whether or not you wish to enter an if you say yes you then just have to turn up."

"Great, do they have age categories?"

"Not as such no. When you enter your first competition you enter into the lowest group of each competition, with all the very young, new or bad duellers. As you do well in that group you will get moved up into the higher groups, much like the muggle divisions for football, so age is irrelevant. The groups are named after metals: copper, bronze, silver and gold. Only those in the gold group can enter the national and international tournaments."

"Oh hello Marcus this is the young man who wanted to talk to you, you can talk in room three"

After thanking Tom for all his help Harry followed Marcus into the room. After explaining to Marcus, who instead Harry call him Mark, what he was doing they decided that Harry would apparate over to Marks house (Mark gave him the coordinates) at nine o'clock every day and Harry would train with Marc until one every day unless Harry was doing something else. They would start with just martial arts then would quickly add both knife fighting and swordplay. Mark said that he was fine continuing the lessons throughout the year if Harry decided not to go back to Hogwarts. Something that Harry felt was becoming more and more likely.

To his surprise Harry found that he greatly enjoyed all forms of combat whether fighting with swords, knives or his hands and feet Harry immensely enjoyed the feeling of testing yourself against others, the satisfaction of landing blows and the rush of adrenalin it brought. He also liked the idea of being the best he could be and worked hart to achieve it. Mark had been surprised with the dedication Harry had thrown himself into learning all he could teach and was improving rapidly.

Mark Harry had learned was Cedric's uncle although they had only met a few times. Due to being a squib he tended to avoid his family, the Diggorys weren't like some families who shunned squibs, but due to the fact they were all wizards Mark felt uncomfortable spending large amounts of time with them. That was not to say he didn't know about the magical world though and he had filled in many of the gaps in harries knowledge about it, such as customs and traditions, holidays and so on. It was because of Mark that Harry went to Gringots to ask out is accounts, he found that he had his personal trust vault; the one Hagrid took him to, the Potter family vault that he couldn't access until he was seventeen, and a few properties. There was Potter manor that his parents hadn't lived in for some reason and a holiday home in the south of France.

Harry also learned that Sirius had, other than some money that went to Tonks and her mum, left said everything else was to be divided evenly between Harry and Remus. Remus had got Grimmauld Place and a house in Hogsmead where he was now living and a lot of money (the blacks were after all an old family like the Malfoys). Harry had gotten the Black Library "to do with as he wished" a lot more money, Black manor that was in Dartmoor and another small house in Ireland, he was also now the head of the black family and would become both Lord Black and Lord Potter when he turned seventeen, until then "head of the Back family" was just a meaningless title as he couldn't do anything until he was of age and there was nothing left of the Potter family to be head of. He could however live in any of his houses and he had moved to Black family manor as soon as he had decoded not to go back to Hogwarts. He had picked the manor as being a manor it was in the middle of nowhere and heavily warded and the Black manor as being a dark family they were paranoid enough to have lots of extra wards and the family had never told anybody else where it was. Harry had been immensely surprised when he ad first visited it, he had expected a lager version of Grimmauld Place, but instead he had found a grand well looked after manor that was decorated in dark woods and fabrics that Harry decided he rather liked/ there were no house elves at the manor, its condition had been preserved by a stasis ward so Harry had called Dobby to ask him if he would be willing to bond with Harry to look after it. Needless to say Dobby had been overjoyed to bond with Harry and had persuaded Harry to except Winky as well who had missed having a family home to look after, so the manor how had two very enthusiastic houses elves looking after it.

Over the last few weeks Harry had continued his study of magic along with the skills he was learning with Mark. He had found that what the old man in the bookshop in Knocturn Alley about dark magic was true and had learnt a lot of Dark spells, both of the type that the ministry deemed dark and true dark magic. Of the mealy banned spells Harry found a few good spells for tracking things or preventing tracking, spells to add traps to objects by say casting a spell that allowed a Reducto spell to be stored in an object until somebody touched it at which point it would explode, it could be achieved more effectively with ward but that was much harder, so the easy way to do it was banned. There was also a method to track both apparition and portkey destinations, it was a very difficult spell and would take most wizards about ten minuets to find the destination is they could even cast the spell. Harry had sunk into Diagon Alley to practice and could get a destination in about 30 seconds which put him in the range of the best Aurors like mad-eye and Harry was sure that with more practice he could do it even faster. In this class there were also spells that the ministry deemed to damaging and inhumane to use these were most of the spells the death eaters used such as the blood boiling curse. These spells Harry studied in particular so that he could cast them but he also made sure he knew all the counter curses as he was sure they would be used on him at some point.

The true dark arts Harry lent were comprised of different disciplines much as the so called light arts were, but instead of charms and transfiguration there was soul magic, necromancy and blood magic.

Soul magic is what the man in the book store said dark magic was, magic that has a price beyond magical energy, its name is a little strange as it doesn't really have anything to do with spirits or souls. Harry had learnt lots of soul magic spells, they were divided into to groups; there were those that were simply more powerful than the normal equivalent. Such as a cutting curse the emotion that was required simply added more cutting power. The other type used the extra power to add an extra effect such as a cutting curse that poisoned the wounds it causes or prevents them from healing. Harry thought that the spells that didn't allow healing would be very useful for fighting vampires due to there greatly enhanced healing. Harry found a set of healing spells that were practically good, not only were they slightly more powerful being soul magic but they didn't wasn't power preventing the subject feeling pain, of course healing with them was very painful but it was much faster and left much smaller scars.

Necromancy is magic that deals with the powers of life and death, soul and powerful beings that must be summoned such as demons. Simple necromancy gives rise to spells that kill things or interact with spirits and in some minor way, such as banishing ghost, or animating copses. The killing is the most common example of necromancy. More complex necromancy involves breaching the barrier between life and death, summoning souls of the dead to speak with them, cursing souls to torment even after the host body is dead, reaching across the plains to summon demons and other beings from different universes all these are example of necromancy at work. It is the highest from of magic and one of the most dangerous along with blood magic. Necromancy is so dangerous because spells like the killing curse channel death, and channelling such power directly through you body leads to insanity, originally necromantic killing spells were short rituals that channelled the power into an object such as a gem and then into its targets, avoiding the caster and leaving them unharmed. This took time however and so a necromancer who was losing a war modified the ritual and created the killing curse channelling the power straight through the wizard. This very slowly corrupted the user, it takes many curses but it would slowly drive the user mad and they would become addicted to the rush of death, but it was supremely deadly so people still use it. The higher forms of necromancy are even more dangerous but in a different way, in order to interact with the dead you must be partially dead your self, a high necromancer one who is capable of the greatest feats of necromancy must put part of their soul in the dead realm, to connect them to it. Obviously a mistake is disastrous and most necromancers die when attempting this. Mush of the knowledge of ho to do these things has been lost however the last High Necromancer was before the founders were born.

Harry hadn't been able to learn any practical necromancy other than a spell to banish ghosts as other than the killing curse almost all knowledge on it had been lost and so the bits that remained were all highly valuable and were ether in privet collections or locked away in the ministry.

Blood magic is very different, the most common from of blood magic involves carving runes into the body that would provide a certain effect. For example a blood magic user could design runes to enhance the user's strength. The first pattern of runes would start the effect, the sets after that would fine tune it; and each ritual becoming more and more complex until the set is complete. The problem with blood magic is that it is intensely personal all rune sets are unique and must be designed on instinct as much as knowledge as such mistakes are often made by people who only have a small gift for blood magic, and in blood magic mistakes are deadly; about one in ten blood magic users die during there first ritual and even after that there is still a good chance of doing something wrong. On the other hand the benefits are immense, vastly accelerated healing, enhanced speed strength, greater control over you magic are all things that can be achieved through blood magic. Harry had started studying blood magic and was partway though designing the runes for his first ritual, one that would enhance his already impressive reflexes. When all the sets of runes were finished (Harry though it would need about ten sets to complete the effect) he would have reflexes that only the older vampires could compete with but that was a long way off.

AN: I really don't like this chapter but in posting it for now anyway. In the next chapter Harry will create his disguise and enter his first duelling tournament. I've also edited the earlier chapters to get rid of the mistakes I noticed


	4. Chapter 4

Harry ducked under a twisting blue spell and deflected the other before returning with a shield disrupter a bludgeoning curse and his advanced stunner. His opened jumped to one side in surprise as his shield unexpectedly fell only barely avoiding the following curses. Moving forward to press his advantage Harry smiled, this was fun! Now that they were closer spells flickered back and forth as Harry's opponent tried to regain his advantage.

'This was much different from school duels' Harry idly thought as he swatted spells away, everything was cast silently for one thing and much faster especially now that they were so close, and Harry liked it that way. He had finished his first blood magic ritual a week ago, one that enhanced his reflexive speed. The difference was not great but in put his already very fast reflexes far beyond that of most people. Harry grinned at the though of what he would be like when he fished the entire set, but winced when he remembered of the hours spent cutting runes into himself, it was no wonder some people went insane (and was universally fatal).

Harry pulled his attention back to the duel in time to bat away a stunning curse and launch a whole series if shield disrupter, stunning and binding spells at his opponent. Unable to raise an effective shield due the disrupters and not being able to dodge to deflect that many spells his opponent dived to the floor and Harry moved in for the kill. The other man sat up just in time to receive a stunner to the head.

Harry smiled at the polite applause he received. Then grinned, he won! His first duel as a bronze level dueller and he won. When Harry had arrived he had expected to be in with the copper level duellers but the judges had approached he and said hat really copper was for children in school (Harry was wearing a ring that that was enchanted to make him look like a black hared eighteen year old) and that if he duelled one of them and showed he was competent and understood the rules he could go straight into the bronze group. Needless to say after a few minuets of trading spells the judges proclaimed him competent and that was that.

Looking around the room Harry admired the decoration and though of the work that must have gone into building this place. This competition was held in a duelling arena in magical Manchester, something Harry had been surprised to learn existed. The gold and silver groups took up the best rooms but even so the room they were in was impressive, white marble floors and walls, polished wood covering the lower third of the walls and decorated ceilings, of course being built by wizards it would have been much easier them had muggles done it, but still it was impressive. Moving over to the schedule sheets, Harry found that he was facing a Thomas Headings next, but that there were three duels before that so Harry found a seat to watch.

Four hours later and Harry was really enjoying himself, he had won seven duels and lost six. Harry found that it was the more experienced duels that he currently had problems with, he was faster had more power and new more spells that anybody he had faced, but he lacked skill, he needed lots more practice at deflecting spells and casting strings of spells constantly. Silent casting was not something he had problems with (it's another mental strength thing) but casting spells on reaction (without thinking what spell he was going to use) was not something he had ever done before.

Harry got up and moved to the third duelling strip as he heard his name called taking a moment to study his opponent. He was a tall man with dark brown hear that fell down to his shoulders Harry guessed that he might be around twenty-four (although it was hard to tell with wizards seeing as they aged much slower). Once they were in position and had bowed to each other the judge called stared that promptly leaped back off the platform. Harry threw an advanced stunner and stepped to his left that inwardly grinned as his opponent did the same. He threw a group of stunners and shield disrupter spells followed by three Reductos that meant that his opponent couldn't dodge and couldn't shield. His opposite however didn't try, with a flick of his wand he conjured a block of stone and levitated it in the path of the spells, the first set of spells were simply absorbed then one of the redactor spells blew the block to pieces which then impacted on Harry's opponents shield and disintegrated. From there the duel became a true battle, Harry and his opponent had backed away from each other and so had plenty of time to both create powerful complex attacks and strong defences. Spells shot back and forth and the barrier that protected the audience was humming with energy as it blocked deflected or dodged spells. Harry had taken to throwing bolts of lightening and waves of force, while his opponent seemed to favour fire. The fight had attracted quite a crowd now as the waves of light looked rather impressive.

They were both quite evenly matched Harry thought, they were both above average in power and spell knowledge, and where Harry had the advantage in power the other man had more experience. Harry decided that he had to end this quickly; he still had one duel left to fight so they couldn't continue this until one ran out of energy, he would be practically forfeiting his next duel. Harry grinned suddenly even as he sent out a wave of force that caused the piste to crack and splinter around his opponents shield. He cast a disillusionment spell and then an Aegis shield on himself then waited a moment before casting the newest spell he had learned. The spell was one Harry had modified himself, while he was sparing with Mark one day he had though of ways to close he distance to a wizard quickly, so he could use physical combat to deal with them. The usual answer would be to summon them, but you cannot summon an unwilling wizard. So Harry had modified the spell, so instead of summing His opponent to Harry the spell summoned Harry to his opponent.

On seeing Harry disappear, the other man let lose a wide spray of spells trying to find him, Harry though the look of shock on his face was terribly amusing as one of his spells met a shield about a foot in front of him before Harry cannoned into the other man .Harry's shield protected him from the impact but his opponent went flying and Harry jumped forwards following him. A quick kick to his wand arm made him drop his wand and a sharp blow to the base of his neck knocked him out. Harry smirked at he confused look on the crowds' faces as the equally confused looking judge proclaimed Harry the winner.

After winning his final duel against a young woman Harry want to watch the silver duels. These duels were all notably longer, there were fewer common spells used, and spells were traded much faster, one duel in particular saw was both incredible and very odd. The two duellers were only about ten feet apart and were trading spells at a terrific rate and they were both only using one spell and deflector charms. The speed the spells were cast and blocked were incredible, until one of the duellers missed a deflection and went flying off the piste, in all the entire duel only lasted about a minuet, it was certainly the fastest duel of the group.

The gold duellers were incredible, the a lot of the spells used here were customised or had been created from scratch, and the amount of them was staggering, where as in Harry s group you saw spells going back and forth here you saw waves flying up and down, Harry also noticed how much more fluid they all seemed, spells were constantly flowing back and forth without any gaps. In this group Harry also sensed something else in some of the duels Harry felt the edges of mental attack flying back and forth, that these duellers could keep up both normal magical duel and a mental one at the same time was staggering especially the way they were duelling. Harry knew he had a long way to go to reach the silver group but the gold duellers were far beyond what he could hope to achieve with a few years.

When the final results were put up, Harry found that he had come fifth out of sixteen duellers. This Harry was quite pleased with and felt that if he found some way to practice deflecting spells he could do a bit better in his next competition that was the next weekend. He also asked the judges what was needed to move up to the next group. Apparently if you had twice as many wins as losses (or better) and maintained this for three competitions you moved up into the next group (unless you were already in the gold one). Harry felt that this was what he should aim for by Christmas.

The next morning Harry awoke a little later than usual and called Dobby for breakfast. First Harry decides that he needed to create more of a background for his disguise. As sooner or later he was bound to be asked about himself and he found that he was getting lonely after spending months by himself as normally he would be in Hogwarts by now. Harry grinned when he remembered the outcry when he hadn't returned to Hogwarts, thankfully the Black manor had wards that prevented mail from unrecognised owls getting to him but they informed him very time an owl tried to get through, or at least they had, after the first hundred or so he had changed them to stop doing it as it as getting irritating. The next time he had been to diagon alley after September he had heard lots of people discussing where they though he was. Most though that he had run off to fight Voldemort on his own and where going on about how brave he was. Harry snorted in disgust the first time he herd this, apparently being a Griffindor made him an idiot. Admittedly he had done similar things in the past but he was never that stupid, or at least he hoped he wasn't, no he was sure he wasn't he would never have gone after an alive Voldemort and a whole army of death eater on his own.

Actually that brought up an interesting point, how many death eaters where there? Sure Harry knew about the more important or infamous ones but was that it, or where the lots of underlings as well?

Shaking his head Harry put that aside to find out later and got back on task. He had entered the Duelling competition as Damien Black, with the intent that if he needed to he could make "Damien" Lord Black publicly. He decided that having the Black Lords ring would proclaim without doubt that he was a Black and as such that meant he could avoid saying how he came into the family and still be believed. On that point he had had Dobby retrieve the Black family tapestry from Grimmauld Place so nobody could check. He would stay with being an orphan and say that his guardians had had him home schooled and that they wanted him to remain hidden, hence why he hadn't entered duelling competition before, upon coming of age however he had left them and started to live how he wanted. It was actually the truth it was just very incomplete and Harry hoped that that would make it more believable. His being hidden from the wizarding world would also explain why he new so little about it, something that he was now beginning to change. Deciding that that was enough for now Harry entered the library and started searching for a way to practice deflecting spells.

Eventually Harry found a ward that reflected most spells sent at it back at the caster, so Harry cast the spell on one of the walls in an unused room along with protective wards on the other walls, ceiling and floor. It work rather well, of course because Harry was the one casting the spell he knew exactly what it was and he could only cast a few spells before needing to stop and deflect the incoming ones. Harry was practicing this one day after his lessons with Mark and decided to try something different; he fired an ordinary disarming spell at the wall and tried to raise a wandless Protego shield to block the spell.

The shield had just started to form when the disarming spell hit him and shattered the partially formed shield. Immediately Harry decided that this was something else to learn, if he could cast offensive spells with his wand and hold shields wandlessly then he would have a big advantage over most people, especially if he could manage to create an Aegis shield wandlessly as that would mean he could fire of spells while being protected, which would be a huge advantage in battle deflector spells were better than shields in one on one duels but in battle a there would be spells flying around from all directions, most of which you couldn't see. So Harry determined to spend time practicing raising wandless shields faster and trying to cast an Aegis shield wandlessly as well as his other training.

The next piece of blood magic he was going to perform was a piece for balance and coordination, he hoped it would help his accuracy and dodging in duels and also help with the exacting precision needed for blood magic itself as the runes had to be perfect or you'd die which was why it took so long. He had found a piece that massively improved a persons night vision, but the runes were so tiny and delicate (and around the eyes) that he didn't want to try it yet. He had also found pieces for strength and stamina that he could do when he had time. After he had got so far in these basic sets there were more advanced things he could move on to; like the night vision one. There were shielding sets that made the user resistant to magic, or a particular element such as fire, the healing sets were defiantly something Harry wanted to try considering how much he got hurt, there were also sets that changed the way the body worked, such as one that improved the efficiency of the lungs so that you could hold your breath for longer and wouldn't get out of breath as much when running.

Harry was sitting in his study pondering something mark had said to him. His swordsmanship had progressed rapidly becoming a dangerous weapon, so Mark had suggested Harry get himself a sword of his own as well as a few more knifes. Harry however was thinking about the books on enchanting he had bought when he first went shopping in the summer. If he could learn how to make swords and knifes he could enchant them himself with what ever properties he wanted, this however was not something he could learn over night, so Harry had a new hobby.

His first few attempts at making knifes (he had decided to start small) were a disaster. He ended up with a blade that was all wavy and bent one time and another he had one that got wider the closer to where the point should have been you got. After a few tries though he learned to make the hammer blows with equal force, and so the shape of his blades improves, they were no works of art but that were certainly knife shaped. After a bit more practice and looking through some books on different techniques Harry felt he could try forging swords. Making a sword was a lot more work. To start with there was a lot more metal to shape and keep hot and there was also the creation of the blade alloy itself. In medieval times swords were made up of different kinds of steel that were combined into one, the standard pattern was to use a few strips of very hard but brittle steel and a few strips of something called spring steel, that was very bendy, heat them together then twist the strips around each other until you had a single bar that was a mixture of the two. This gave the blades a marbles effect that looked a bit like ripples on a lake (if you ever go and see old swords in a museum you can see this on some of them) as the two metals looked very slightly different. Of course you first had to create the alloys you self from ordinary iron that was extracted from its ore. Steel was made from iron by heating it hammering it out into a thin strip then folding it over and repeating the process. Each time this was done the iron picked up carbon from the forge (burning of coal or charcoal) making it into steel. The hardest steels were achieved by repeating this process hundreds of times, but even ordinary steel, the sort that was used to make common items took more than twenty repeats.

Of course in the modern muggle world you could buy steel of what ever carbon composition you wanted, along with steel that included other metals. This is what Harry did he bought quite a lot of both very high carbon content steel and spring steel. Eventually Harry planed to use magical materials to forge his own sword and knifes as they could contain magic better but they were both expensive and more difficult to work so for practice Harry used muggle steels.

While he was working on his new hobby he had continued with his training although he had less time for it and he had kept entering duelling tournaments as the experience he gained was what he needed most. Hid duelling had improved rapidly at first as he quickly became accustomed to it, after a few weeks his progress slowed though. He was currently amongst the top twenty of the bronze group duellers winning about 1.7 times as many duels as he lost. He was still improving, just slower than he had been before, mostly due to the fact that when he first started he had had only a very basic idea of how to duel.

His training with Mark was still progressing; he reacted correctly to attacks on instinct instead of having to think it now which Harry felt was a huge improvement and Mark agreed. Harry was still learning new spells and had begun enchanting some of the knifes he had made as well as creating a few spells of is own, they weren't perfect and needed a bit more power than they should but he was getting better. He was still learning new spells and counters and had started to learn a few healing ones. In an effort to improve the spells he was creating Harry had also gone to muggle London and bought books on muggle science, from high school level all the way to post graduate. He was intrigued in where magic fit into the muggle understanding of the universe but there were no obvious gaps for it. He had made a few improvements to his spells though; upon finding out about how electricity affected people he had modified the spell 'Procella' to have two versions, one a lethal version that created a storm of high voltage, high current bolts and a none lethal version that conjured high voltage low current bolts, like a muggle taser that disabled people rather than killing them. He had also found a way to imitate a very deadly muggle weapon, the fuel-air bomb. By conjuring a cloud of fuel like petrol of a certain density and then setting fire to it a huge explosion could be created that could easily flatten a few houses at once or kill large groups of people, the down side was that it took a while to cast, so it couldn't be used in a straight fight.

AN: I am considering scrapping the first two chapters and covering the material in them in a series of flash backs when it becomes relevant, what do you think? Oh and I'm going to start looking for a beta.


End file.
